Program for a Matinée at the Trocadéro 1903

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made this drawing, Program for a Matinée at the Trocadéro, in 1903, and looking at it, I think he's asking, how can a work of art address an audience? I can see him drawing, his hand moving with purpose and maybe also uncertainty as he builds up these figures from a mass of tiny, dark marks. The grainy quality of the lithographic crayon gives the piece a feeling of immediacy, as if the image were emerging from the shadows, revealing some scene—perhaps a stage play. What’s going on here? The artist is grappling with how to communicate something important. He’s staging the whole thing, setting up an allegorical scene for us. But what kind of feelings and ideas could be communicated through something like this? I suppose, like Steinlen, we just keep trying, experimenting, and conversing through our work, each of us contributing to the ongoing, often uncertain, but always engaging, dialogue that is art.